Courtesy is universal, and courtesy it is which makes life worth living whether you are at home or abroad. Take, for instance, our very own Lucknavi courtesy expression, pehle aap (you first), an extreme situation of which is highlighted by the apocryphal story of the twin embryos, each offering the other the chance to be born first, until — years later — they are eventually delivered by a caesarian operation, beards already having grown on their faces! But courtesy, irrespective of the country or clime you may happen to be in, is essentially the display of the spirit of pehle aap through diverse and highly individualised means of communication. In France or in the Francophone countries of West Africa, or even Mauritius, you would frequently hear the sonorous twin words, apres vous, which incidentally is the reverse rendering of pehle aap. It merely means ‘‘after you’’. At the piazza (open air market) in Belgrade, you would often hear the sweet sounding word izvolte, while on the boulevards of Tehran you would be greeted very frequently with a befermaind, along with a bow and/or a wave of the hand. In Japan, the courtesy word is dozo and what will bowl you over is the accompanying half-a-dozen bows of the head, each bow getting lower than the other. In Spain, or in Latin American countries, por favor softly uttered by a senorita might send you spinning into a daydream. There are, in addition, many exotic expressions, compressed into a single word or combination of words, which convey a lot more than just the essence of pehle aap. In Serbian, it’s prijatno, in Persian it’s befermaind, and in German, bitte — to mention just a few. All of them are omnibus expressions of courtesy. For instance, if you happen to be speaking, eating. etc, a prijatno or befermaind would gently convey an exhortation to continue the same without interruption. English, as we all know, has the ubiquitous word ‘‘please’’ to suit all seasons and occasions. If our chaste Hindi has any such compressed expression of omnibus courtesy, it does not readily come to mind. Perhaps the resourceful Hindi transliterators may wish to coin a catchy expression suitable for Doordarshan lingo! (The writer retired from the Indian Foreign Service)
